By IANS,
New Delhi: MPs and leaders from various political parties Tuesday said an inclusive Food Security Act with universal Public Distribution System (PDS) will be taken up in parliament soon.
The assurance came at a ‘Jan Manch (public discussion)’ organised by the Right To Food Campaign here at Jantar Mantar which saw several political leaders including D. Raja of Communist Party of India (CPI), Brinda Karat of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), and Prakash Javadekar of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) meet hundreds of protesters from around 10 states.
“Once the government tables the Food Security Bill, we will do whatever it takes to ensure that your demands are taken up in a concerted way,” said Raja.
The leaders had a face to face interaction with the protesters and criticised the government’s socio-economic caste census, terming it flawed and ineffective to recognize many vulnerable poor due its faulty enumeration.
“We demand that the caste census should not in any way be linked with food entitlements as it will undermine the principle of rightful access to food entitlement,” said Karat.
The gathering, also protesting against the government’s plan to replace PDS with cash coupons, was assured by the leaders that no such plan would be implemented.
“For the poor there is no question of substituting grains with cash as it will aggravate the existing distress and deprivation of food among the poor… The Act is creating more insecurity than security,” said Javadekar.
“The Food Security Act will not weaken the public distribution system and if grains have to replaced it has to be with grains and any shift to cash coupons will only apply to the subsidies given to inputs like fertilizers,” K. Keshav Rao, representing the Congress, said.